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As OUR Center prepares to close its warming center, other agency scrambles to fill in the gaps

By Magdalena WegrzynLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
09/29/2012 08:20:31 PM MDT

Updated:
09/29/2012 08:23:10 PM MDT

James Peebles receives a blanket and jeans from Ron Bolton, a volunteer at HOPE, in the parking lot of the Safety & Justice Center in Longmont on Tuesday. When the OUR Center closes its warming center at the end of this year, the warming center that HOPE and Agape Family Services run in north Longmont will be the sole emergency warming center in the city.
(
Greg Lindstrom
)

LONGMONT -- Longmont's two warming centers will open for the season on Monday, but by the end of the calendar year, only one will still be operating.

The OUR Center has re-focused on its mission to fund programs that help people find permanent housing and move toward self-sufficiency. The agency's warming center, which has been open since fall 2007, will shutter in December.

"What we really want to do is spend more of our resources on preventing and really addressing people's need to get housing so they can move forward," said OUR Center executive director Edwina Salazar.

The move has Longmont's other overnight-sheltering agency scrambling to secure additional space to house the homeless this winter, and it worries those who relied on the OUR Center for shelter.

By January, faith-based nonprofit Agape Family Services will be the only organization operating a warming center in Longmont. Agape's warming center rotates between its headquarters -- an annex building at 10667 Parkridge Ave., across the street from its parent organization, Front Range Christian Fellowship Church -- and The Journey of Longmont Church, 1285 S. Fordham St.

Agape's annex building houses the homeless for three-week stretches. The Journey then serves as a relief site for one week.

With only enough room for about 20 people at each site, Agape needs a space in Longmont to open a second warming center, said Front Range Christian Fellowship pastor Gary Jefferson, who runs Agape.

The nonprofit is currently seeking a space -- even a temporary one to tide it over until the season ends March 31 -- that could house 15 to 20 people. Additional volunteers will also be needed to supervise the overnight shelters.

Chris Edwards smokes outside Agape Family Services in Longmont on Tuesday. When the OUR Center closes its warming center at the end of this year, the warming center that HOPE and Agape Family Services run in north Longmont will be the sole emergency warming center in the city.
(
Greg Lindstrom
)

Jefferson said he fears the worst case scenario: It might take a homeless person freezing to death on the street to rally people to address the issue.

"We all know the need is there," he said. "It's like somebody has to get killed for them to put up a stop sign."

Who are Longmont's homeless?

The OUR Center's board of directors decided earlier this year to close the warming center because it did not fulfill the nonprofit's primary goal of self-sufficiency programming, Salazar said.

At a time when funding has slowed but the number people in need hasn't, the OUR Center needed to shift money used for the warming center to other programs, Salazar said. And many private donors want their money to go to programs that move people to self-sufficiency, she added.

Longmont's homeless population has more than doubled since 2009, according to numbers from the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative's point-in-time surveys. The most recent survey on Jan. 23 counted 883 homeless in Longmont.

The other consideration is that of the 90 people who slept at the OUR Center's warming center in the 2011-12 season, only 22 had become homeless in Longmont, according to intake data.

Of the 22 Longmont people who used the OUR Center last season, 16 are still homeless, and, once the warming center closes, Salazar said case workers will help those people secure permanent housing through deposit assistance and case management.

Dave Knellinger, left, gets a burrito from Rob Bolton, a volunteer with HOPE, in the parking lot of the Safety & Justice Center in Longmont on Tuesday.
(
Greg Lindstrom
)

Prior to last season, Longmont people made up between 70 and 90 percent of the warming center clients. Salazar said shrinking resources in neighboring communities may have pushed homeless to Longmont for services

Longmont Police Cmdr. Craig Earhart, who is part of the Longmont Housing Opportunities Team, said officers have seen more "transient homeless" over the past two years who have moved to Longmont as resources in their communities have dried up.

While data collection varies across agencies, Agape's numbers don't reflect a drop in Longmont people. Last season, 85 people stayed at Agape's overnight shelters, and five told intake staff they were from a city other than Longmont or Boulder, said program coordinator Marlinda Jackson.

Agape Family Services facility at 10667 Parkridge Ave. rotates with facilities at The Journey of Longmont Church, 1285 S. Fordham St. to serve as an emergency warming center.
(
Greg Lindstrom
)

Anecdotally, about 75 to 90 percent of the people who used Agape's shelter have ties to Longmont, said Stacey Hiatt, executive director of HOPE, or Homeless Outreach Providing Encouragement, a street outreach nonprofit that transports people to Agape's shelters.

"We know that from having a relationship with them," she said.

'Like leaving us out here for dead'

On Tuesday evening, more than 70 people lined up behind a HOPE van in the northwest corner of the Longmont Safety & Justice Center parking lot. Volunteers handed out burritos, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and clothes.

James Peebles, who stopped at the van to pick up food and clothing, called the OURC Center decision "stupid." He said he stayed at the agency's warming center about five nights last season.

"You want somebody to freeze? That's not right. That's like leaving us out here for dead," said Peebles, who has been homeless about three years.

Later in the evening, a handful of people gathered at Agape's building in north Longmont, where HOPE runs a drop-in community center year-round on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Inside the brick, ranch-style house, they watched movies, washed their laundry, took turns using the shower and logged onto provided laptops.

One anonymous 58-year-old woman said she spent two winters at the OUR Center's warming center. Without that option, she anticipates that Agape's shelter will be overcrowded and more people will have to go unsheltered.

"There's going to be cold people staying outside," she said. "And I've had to do it myself. It's really nice to have the warming center open. It's a lifesaver. There's laundry. There's a TV, movies, a little kitchen. And it's usually very enjoyable to visit with the people."

Same problem, different approaches

While all organizations that serve the homeless are trying to solve the same problem, different philosophies have emerged, said Rick Ebbers, senior pastor at The Journey Church of Longmont, one of Agape's sites for a warming center.

"One of the shifts that you have to make mentally when you say we're going to help chronically homeless people is to realize -- without it being a defeatist mentality -- that some of them are going to remain homeless their entire lives," Ebbers said.

And then the question becomes: What, if anything, should society do to help them?

"It's that whole sense of what's your anthropological center? How do you view humanity?" Ebbers said.

Bob Reed, president of HOPE's board of directors, calls what HOPE and Agape provide the bare survival basics: food, clothing, shelter. The whole point, he said, is to keep people from freezing to death.

"You can't save a person today if he dies tonight," he said. "So our goal is to keep you alive through the night. You still have time to help that person tomorrow, but if he dies tonight, you don't."

Salazar acknowledges a need for sheltering in Longmont and said agencies who provide that have "a fine mission."

"It's just not our mission," she said.

She said the OUR Center invests in people "who we have a greater likelihood in helping become self-sufficient." For financial assistance, for example, people must prove they have lived in Longmont at least 30 days, and they must agree to follow a case plan.

The OUR Center's $4.2 million new building, tentatively scheduled to open in fall 2014, will likely prompt similar changes. The proposed 30,676-square-foot building sits across the street from the agency's three-building campus on Third Avenue between Collyer and Atwood streets. Once the new site opens, services like the daily hot meal program, which provides a free lunch to anyone who stops at the hospitality center, will require people to first register and agree to follow a case plan aimed at making them self-sufficient, Salazar said.

In an email, Salazar called the move the OUR Center is taking to close its warming center "a bold, compassion action."

"We are putting our organizational will to countering the demoralization and loss of hope that people who are homeless experience night after night staying in shelters. ... No matter how kindly operated, shelters are not homes," she said.

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